Facegen Race

If you've ever used Facegen Modeler's photo fit feature to create a face for your character or for NPCs, you've probably been disappointed because it doesn't look like the subject once you get it into Fallout. There are a number of reasons for this, and a number of things you can do about it, with this mod being one of them.

PROBLEM #1: It's almost impossible to compensate for a poor source photo. If it doesn't look like the subject in Facegen, it definitely won't look like the subject in Fallout.

SOLUTION: I'm not really qualified to write a Facegen tutorial, but I've included a few tips below.

PROBLEM #2: Facegen Modeler creates a head model and facial texture from the photo, but Fallout doesn't use them. Fallout only uses the facial shape and color data from Facegen with a single generic head model and texture.

SOLUTION: After you use photo fit in Facegen Modeler, move the "Detail Texture Modulation" slider on the "Generate" tab all the way to the left (zero). This doesn't actually fix the problem, but it's much closer to how the face will look in Fallout, so it helps set your expectations for the final result. Or if you're a modder who wants the best results possible, and you have the full commercial version of Facegen Modeler (around $300 US), and you know how to edit DDS files and use Blender, there's an excellent tutorial on getting the model & texture out of Facegen and into Fallout here:

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/15902

PROBLEM #3: Fallout applies modifiers to all of the default races. If it didn't, a completely neutral face (all sliders set to the middle zero position) would look ethnically ambiguous instead of looking like the race you selected. However, when you use Facegen photo fit, the face already looks like the subject (at least as much as the first two problems allow), so Fallout's racial modifiers distort the result. Fallout also applies an additional modifier to female characters for the same reason. If it didn't, a completely neutral female face would look exactly like a completely neutral male face. Again, this is helpful if you're creating a face in the game or the GECK, but it causes problems when importing a female face from Facegen.

SOLUTION: Use this mod. It compensates by creating a new race that has no racial modifiers, and cancels out the female modifier. The screen shots use my Facegen race, with shape & color data transferred straight from Riven's Famous People . FG files (which are awesome):

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout3/mods/15842

Installation

Copy EITHER FacegenRace.esm or FacegenRace.esp BUT NOT BOTH to your Fallout data folder. The default location is:

C:\Program Files\Bethesda Softworks\Fallout 3\data

- FacegenRace.esm is for players to use Facegen for their player character.